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Every convention known to humandom has a hierarchy or two. There are the people who run the show. There are the people who are the stars of the show. There are the people who work the show. There are the people who come to the convention. Those in the know for that particular industry are well aware of who must be attended to and who can safely be ignored. They know who the up-and-comers are, who the wanna-bes are, and who the has-beens are. Paula Halliday is an exhibit manager at The Big Apple Flower Show. Her exhibit consists of metal sculptures of various sizes, suitable for display in one's garden. She is not someone in the know. She's curious, and not afraid to ask questions. This comes in very handy when she becomes a suspect in at least one murder. It all gets very confusing - lots of names and businesses, lots of people with different agendas, just lots of busyness. This is not unusual, actually, at a convention. There are moments of absolute chaos, followed by spells of not a thing going on. Paula uses those moments of quiet to ask questions of the other exhibitors. They have lots of opportunity to observe, and some incentive to have the notoriety disappear. As always, there are those who believe that any publicity is good - and the storied Javits curse that is supposed to haunt events at the center brings publicity, and attendees. Paula picks up quite an array of allies as she tries to figure out what's going on. Some of them are a little stereotypical, but stereotypes have to come from somewhere, so the characters are not, in and of themselves, unbelievable. The setting takes Paula away from her usual haunts, and into an arena that can be quite cut-throat at the upper levels. This takes the series out of Jessica Fletcher territory. The plot is good. There are believable red herrings and alternate suspects; this will keep astute readers guessing. This is the fourth in the Dirty Business series; Harris's writing abilities have grown as the series progresses. One can see SLUGFEST as an allegory for the competitive nature of life, or one can just read it for a good time. § P.J. Coldren lives in northern lower Michigan where she reads and reviews widely across the mystery genre when she isn't working in her local hospital pharmacy.
Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, March 2011
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